Indie Game Conference EAST

#1 That would be awesome. It would probably be cheaper to hold it in a smaller town like Albany, NY. :)

I'm biased cuz thats where I'm from but somewhere like that because it isn't real expensive but is an easy place to get to from all of New England and anywhere South to probably Virginia plus we have our own International Airport.

Well anyway I hope GG is considering this in the future.

#2 I put my vote in for Orlando, FL. :)

#3 I put my vote in for Ontario :P

#4 If in Ontario, I have the facilities...

#5 How bout Mid East, Some place were the distance isn't so bad maybe Cincinatti, Nashville, Pitssburg. Something in the border states.

#6 I'll second the motion for NYC :)

#7 You'd have another attendee here. I'm in the Northern VA/College Park, MD area depending on the day of the week.

@Anthony, if you're looking for a place where the distance "isn't so bad" the northeast would probably be the best bet since that's where the bulk of the userbase is. Edit: I strike that remark. I guess it depends on how you look at it and what your hopefull expected ratio of that userbase is.

#8 Would you guys be willing to pay $1200/head for such a conference?

#9 Why would it be $1200?

#10 Because they'd have to fly out everyone from GG, all the equipment, etc.. That's a costly proposition. A nice idea, and not a bad one at that, but costly for GG.

- Brett

#11 Seems as though there would be more attendees to offset that cost. If you have 600 attendees instead of the 300 or so that attended in Eugene, that would offset the cost effectively. Seems there would be that many attendees in a major city.(no offense to Eugene OR). Also the opportunity for higher sponsorship fees as it will be occuring in an major city. Wouldn't sponsors like NVIDIA etc pay more for visibility at a show in a major market?

But to answer the question Matt Fairfax asked. I WOULD pay $1200 if it was on the East coast. Especially if it allowed the same accessability to key people in the gaming industry.

#12 I'm not convinced we would get much higher attendance (if at all). There are *far* more game developers on the west coast than on the east coast (in the LA, San Francisco, and Seattle areas...east coast has a concentration in Texas and in Boston and those are *much* smaller than the concentrations here on the west coast). Granted I am speaking of proffessional developers but from the time I spent on the east coast (26 years), I never saw a very high concentration of indie developers there either.

Currently I would estimate about 100 of the attendees of IGC are from the east coast (or europe). Even if we doubled or tripled that number at an east coast IGC we *still* wouldn't have 600 attendees. A growth of 6X just by moving the location seems highly unlikely given what I know of our community. Say we only hold one IGC on the east coast instead. Now we lose a fair chunk of our west coast attendees (say down to a 150). Even at a generous estimate (triple east coast and don't lose 2/3rds of west coast) we are still only looking at 450 attendees (out of which only 400 or so would pay since GG employees and speakers do not). Factor in the additional costs and we are likely to lose a fair chunk of the current attendees (west coasters have to pay travel costs + $1200).

Let's just take a quick look at some numbers:
It costs $500 to fly to Eugene from pretty much anywhere on the east coast (and you can find cheaper deals if you shop around a bit).
It costs $15 to get from the airport into Eugene so $30 coming and going.
Lunch and dinner are provided Friday and Saturday and lunch is provided Sunday so say you fly in Thursday night and out Sunday night you are only going to have to pay for 2-3 meals. Eating at some nice places is going to set you back $10/meal so you might need about $30 for meals.
There are a number of cheap hotels within walking distance of the conference hall (no need to rent a car) which runs an average of $65/night so you are looking at $195 for hotel if you don't split it with anyone (splitting is *very* common).
Add in the $195 to attend the conference and you are looking at:

$950

There are a number of ways to get this number down: I've priced round trip flights as cheap as $200 from Charlotte, NC into Eugene. Flying into Portland can save you up to $300 on the ticket and you can take a train to within 6 blocks of the conference hall for $50 (roundtrip). There is always Greyhound also. You can share a rental car with someone else flying into Portland or catch a ride with someone driving down. Split a hotel room with 2-3 other people. Book at the cheaper hotels. Eat at cheap places (there is a Subway and Quiznos within easy walking distance of the hotels). Borrow frequent flier miles from relatives (or sign up for a new credit card =P).

Sure, you are going to lose a couple days of productivity travelling to and fro to the conference but unless you happen to live in the same east coast city we hold the conference in (or really close) then that would still be true. We lose an average of 2-3 weeks of productivity across the board here at GG by hosting IGC. If we had to double that we would lose nearly 2 months out of the year to the conferences and would have to get back that time/opportunity/money by raising the price.

Getting more sponsor money would require more work on our part and given how well we have been sponsored in the past I am not sure that we *could* get that much more (most of the sponsors are west coast based and are unlikely to pay more for an east coast conference).

#13 Keep in mind that $1200/head is a probably a pretty low estimate. It is going to cost a pretty penny to ship all of the GG employees and needed equipment across the country (renting equipment would be as bad or worse). The cost of the venue would rise dramatically since we won't be getting the great deals we get here in Eugene. Higher costs of catering. Higher hotel costs for attendees. We also face losing speakers who are local or paying to fly them out.

I just don't see how GG running an east coast IGC could be a win for more than a handful of people in the city we choose? However, If you guys want to take it upon yourselves to set up an east coast IGC, I am sure we could send a few people out from GG to attend =)

#14 I understand the logic, but seriously...You think there are more indie game developers close to Eugene Oregon than NY or Washington DC? The 'map' in the community area has more dots concentrated on the East Coast.

The Serious Games summit is occuring here in DC week after next, if that is any indication of a turnout. The maximum cost of registration is $795. How do they make that happen if the interest in development is not there?

Not trying to turn it into an East Coast vs West Coast battle like Biggie and Tupac, but you may be suprised at how much interest in indie development is on this coast.

#15 @Matt maybe i'm the only one but I don't think we were thinking a full scale thing like you have in Oregon. Maybe I don't know the logistics of what you guys would need to bring along. It would be awesome if the community could come up with organizing and funding something and GG's could send a few employees out to a community developed conference.

#16 I didnt realize we were talking about a full blown IGC on the east coast. I was thinking more of a mini IGC ...

EDIT: That was weird ^

#17 @James,

I completely agree with Matt and his logic. It would be a lot more expensive to hold a variant or the complete conference on the East Coast as opposed to the defacto home of this community (ie. Eugene Oregon). Under my own estimation you would probably lose at least half of the sessions speakers due to the various costs that Matt outlined in his post.

So please understand no one is trying to say this is a dumb idea, they are just trying to say its not a cost effective idea that will not give you the same bang for your buck that you get from traveling out to Eugene Oregon. There are huge production costs associated with putting on a show like this and I know for a fact GG goes overboard with what they provide in making this session something that is arguably better than E3 and GDC in regards to what you get for your value. Hell the food alone (BBQ rips and Chicken) sure beats those lame ass brown bag lunches that we got at GDC 05 if you bought one of those $1200 session passes :)

#18

Quote:
The Serious Games summit is occuring here in DC week after next, if that is any indication of a turnout. The maximum cost of registration is $795. How do they make that happen if the interest in development is not there?

The serious games summit is nothing like the Indie Gamers Convention unfortunately--they have quite a bit more commercial/military attendees with quite a bit larger budgets, etc., etc., etc.

There are plans in the works on the marketing side for more road shows in the next year, and one of these is basically the equivalent of what the first poster was aiming at, but in a 1-2 day "mode". Once Jay, Benjamin Bradley, Davey and myself get things firmed up you will be hearing more about the goals and intentions.

#19 Stephen - Thank you for that information. I look forward to seeing what you guys are cooking up over there :)

#20 One IGC is enough.

My business partner and I came from Texas to the IGC this year and we roughly spent $1400 including airfare, hotel, cab rides, and IGC passes. It was very reasonable considering we typically pay a little more than $3000 to go to the GDC every year ($2000 of that on passes alone).